Dragonfly Creek by T.L. Haddix Read Free Book Online

couldn’t imagine life without her.
    “I want you both to know that I’m probably going to end up buying cigarettes this evening when I get there.” Ainsley made the confession with an apologetic shrug.
    “Baby girl, if that’s what you have to do to cope, you do it. You have your pills?”
    Ainsley held up the round packet of birth control. “Of course. I even have a spare, just in case.” She tucked it carefully back into the pocket of the suitcase. “And Jonah’s only a call away.”
    “That I am. Are you coming back up here for your period or staying there?”
    “I don’t know yet. Depends on how much work I have to do. Hopefully, it won’t be too bad this month. And I have three or four weeks before I have to worry about it, anyhow.” She checked to make sure her leather journal was in the pocket next to the pills, and after touching it for reassurance, she closed the suitcase and zipped it up. “Don’t you think?”
    “If your pattern holds,” Jonah agreed, somewhat skeptically. “I’m concerned that the pills aren’t working to get that straightened out. This new one was supposed to be much more helpful.”
    Shortly after her marriage to Doug, Ainsley had suffered a very traumatic miscarriage. It had left physical scars that made her period erratic and tremendously uncomfortable, to say the least. For the first two years, she’d coped by self-medicating, not just with the physical agony, but with the mental scars and pain. She’d fallen easily into addiction, wanting to escape the realities of her past. After she’d gotten sober, though, she’d suffered through the first six months of life without prescription pain medication. By then, Doug had been ill, and she couldn’t risk relapsing, not when he needed her most.
    Jonah, who lived in a renovated carriage house on the farm, had stepped in to intervene. Under careful supervision, every cycle, he would administer pain medicine and muscle relaxers. He and Byrdie got Ainsley through the worst of it.
    He’d teamed up with her doctor recently to try to figure out what a good course of treatment would be. Her gynecologist had been pushing for her to have a hysterectomy for over a year now, but Ainsley wasn’t ready for that. She knew she would never have children; the specialists she’d seen after the miscarriage had told her that. But she wasn’t ready to let go of her womb, no matter how much it reminded her of her failings every few weeks.
    “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Byrdie asked. “I can reschedule the appointment.”
    Ainsley easily wrapped the smaller woman in a hug and kissed her cheek. “I’m sure. I’ll be okay. I need to do this on my own. Need to prove I can do it. And it’s only two days,” she emphasized again. “I’ve not come nearly as far as I think I have if I can’t handle two days on my own.”
    She’d been sober for two years. She still saw a counselor occasionally. They both agreed it was time to go back to Hazard.
    “Well, I’ll go get you some food pulled together. That way, if you don’t want to stop at the store, you don’t have to.” Byrdie left, and Ainsley exchanged a look with Jonah.
    “You know you’ll probably need a moving van to get whatever food she’s thinking down there,” he teased gently.
    “I know. But it’s nice to be loved.”
    “It is. And you are.”
    Once she was fully packed, she looked around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She glanced at the three-paneled mirror in her closet as she came back out. “Do you think I should change clothes?” she asked Jonah.
    “You look fine to me.”
    She was wearing a casual shirt and nice jeans. Her hair was pulled back into a jaunty ponytail, which she took down and shook out.
    “I don’t want to look too casual. Of course, it is Hazard. Casual is the norm down there.”
    Jonah laughed as she twisted her hair up and used the fabric-coated rubber band to secure it in a loose bun at the nape of her